Kevin Boyle,
Associate Professor - English
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In our upper-level GST class, The Empire Writes Back, we
studied different areas of British colonial expansion,
including Northern Ireland, the Sudan, India, Jamaica,
and Palestine. Because we were studying in London, we had
a vast array of opportunities at our fingertips: the
British Museum, a theatre version of Salman Rushdie's
MIDNIGHTS' CHILDREN, and the neighborhoods lived in
by immigrants from the colonies.
In addition, our grant allowed us to bring in three
special speakers. Colin Schindler, from the University of
London, spoke about the birth of Israel. Nawazish
Bokhari, from the Muslim Council, spoke about various
disputed areas of the world, including Israel/Palestine,
Kashmir, and Iraq. Sean Boyle, from Northern Ireland,
spoke about the poetry written by his contemporary from
Northern Ireland, Seamus Heaney, the Nobel-prize winner.
Boyle also brought us on a tour of East London, where
Jews, Irish, and now Bengalis have lived.
We were also able to see a new play called CROSSING
JERUSALEM, which spoke of the intifada and the Israeli
responses to it. And, finally, to complement our reading
of a Sudanese novel, we allowed students to take five
dollars off their meals at an authentic Sudanese
restaurant.
In all of these activities, the goal was to increase
students' understanding of the complexities of the
current world order, linking current problems with the
history of the British Empire. The hope was to make the
students more civically minded, by making them more
knowledgeable about various regions of the world, and the
links between history and current events-both political
and artistic.
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